African States Will Lobby Russia on Ivory Coast Crisis, FT Says
West African nations will send a high-level mission to Moscow, in a bid to persuade the Russian government to accept tougher action against Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo, the Financial Times reported, citing unidentified diplomats and regional officials.
The delegation is likely to be led by James Victor Gbeho, who heads the Economic Community of West African States, and may include regional heads of state, the newspaper said.
Gbagbo’s refusal to make way for Alassane Ouattara, the man who defeated him in Ivory Coast’s November presidential election, has brought the country close to civil war, but Russia has opposed efforts to intervene, the newspaper said.
OAO Lukoil, Russia’s second-biggest oil producer, has stakes in three deep-water blocks off the Ivorian coast; it acquired them during Gbagbo’s period in office and power changes in Africa are often followed by reviews of oil and mineral rights, the FT said.
No one in Russia’s Foreign Ministry was available to comment; a Lukoil spokesman said the company is “not engaged in politics” and hopes the situation will normalize, according to the newspaper.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Purkiss in London on apurkiss@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Colin Keatinge in London at ckeatinge@bloomberg.net.
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